We Need To Talk: Shauna Panczyszyn

ADC Member gets passive aggressive in her latest personal project

Did your roommate leave the toilet seat up for the umpteenth time? Did your co-worker take your lunch from the break room fridge? Does your neighbor not pick up after her dog visits your lawn? Orlando-based illustrator, letterer and ADC Member Shauna Panczyszyn not only feels your pain, she has also brought it to life with ‘We Need To Talk’, a personal hand lettering project that captures the essence of passive aggressive confrontations.

It all started when Shauna discovered that her neighbors weren’t following their apartment complex’s garbage disposal rules. “Working from my apartment I kept hearing the lids of the cans slam, and one day I finally walked outside to see a raccoon staring back at me from the other end of the hall, enjoying a buffet of grossness,” she recalls. “So I went back into my apartment and tweeted about how my neighbors are disgusting (“Dear neighbor, you have a dirty can.”). My friend tweeted back at me and said ‘If you do not letter this, life is not worth living’. So I did it. I then took a photo of the raccoon in the hall, printed the note and taped both to my neighbor’s door. I posted a photo of the note to Facebook where a bunch of friends chimed in saying how they wanted notes for other situations, and the project started to come to life.”

” ‘If you do not letter this, life is not worth living’. So I did it.”

Shauna decided to call her ongoing project ‘We Need To Talk’ because she says it’s “one of the most passive aggressive openers people use when confronting situations.” The project was featured on DesignTaxi, Quipsologies and Apartment Therapy. “I learned by reading the comments on Apartment Therapy that people 1) take things too seriously and 2) lack a sense of humor,” Shauna jokes. “It hasn’t stopped me from continuing!”

“The best part of the project has been having an outlet for me to be snarky without feeling like a total a-hole when I post things, because so many people feel the same way!”